Azerbaijan to demand compensation for Armenian damage

/By AzerNews/

By Sara Rajabova

The damage caused to Azerbaijan as a result of Armenian aggression is growing each passing year.

Nusret Ibrahimov, a member of the working group tasked in assessing the damages caused to Azerbaijan as a result of Armenia's aggressive policy, said the group has done almost half of work to calculate the damage caused to Azerbaijan by Armenia.

“But it is necessary to consider year-on-year increase of the damage, which is why we have to update the data on daily basis," Ibrahimov said. "This is quite an enormous task and it is difficult to solve it in a definite timeframe. Each day of the occupation of our lands expands the damage.”

Azerbaijan's economy, culture and many other fields suffered great damage by force of Armenia's violent and aggressive policy towards the country.

Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over one million were displaced as a result of the war.

Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal. Peace talks mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. have produced no results so far.

The damages caused by Armenia during the years of occupation of Azerbaijani lands hit about $818 billion, according to Baku’s latest calculations.

Ibrahimov noted that the group will first send all documents related to the calculation of the Armenian damage to the appropriate authorities to get final approval and then publicize it internationally.

He also informed that the foreign specialists have rendered greater support to the working group in this regard.

“Experts from different countries gave a great help to our work, which is mainly technical assistance. They shared their experience in carrying out this kind of assessments, proper reporting and data collection methods. We thank them for their help,” Ibrahimov said.

Azerbaijan intends to make a call at the international level to demand compensation from Armenia.